


the one where they didn't come back

by cofax



Category: Stargate SG-1
Genre: AU, Amnesty, Gen, Unfinished
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-16
Updated: 2020-12-16
Packaged: 2021-03-10 23:08:30
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,120
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28105251
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/cofax/pseuds/cofax
Summary: What if Apophis skipped Earth and went right to Abydos in the pilot of SG-1?  What might have happened then?
Comments: 7
Kudos: 18





	the one where they didn't come back

**Author's Note:**

> This was written in 2007 for a challenge I bailed on, and I never finished it. But I think it's worth posting anyway.

Two airmen stood next to his truck as the kids and their parents spilled out across the parking lot. "Great save there, Jessie," called Jack as the nine-year-old ran past him, her skatebag bouncing on her shoulder. "See you on Tuesday."

"Bye, Coach!" yelled Yan, hand-in-hand with his father.

Jack waved at the Rustlers (not a name he would have chosen) and keyed the lock on his truck. He ignored the airmen until he threw his gear into the back, and finally turned around, raising an eyebrow. "What can I do for you folks?"

"Colonel Jack O'Neill?" The taller airman was a Latina Jack vaguely recognized, a staff sergeant who might have been on General West's staff.

"Retired."

"ID please, sir?" When Jack had satisfied them, she said, "We have orders to escort you to Cheyenne Mountain, sir. Airman Hamill here can take your car home for you."

"Do I have a choice?" 

"Not really, sir, no." She had the grace to look a little abashed, but gestured nonetheless to her car, another one of the fungible fleet cars belonging to the Air Force.

Jack shrugged, grabbed his jacket out of his truck, and tossed the keys to Hamill. "You break it, you buy it."

*

As he half expected, they took him down past NORAD into the pit where the Stargate was, and brought him into the conference room outside General West's office. Except General West was apparently gone, because the bald two-star who came through the doorway was no one Jack had ever seen before. "Colonel, thank you for coming down at such short notice. Sergeant," he said to his aide, "have our guests brought in."

"Hammond" was the name stitched across the general's pocket. "General," said Jack warily. "What's going on?"

Hammond's eyes narrowed. "Why don't you tell me, Colonel. According to the report you filed, Doctor Daniel Jackson died on Abydos."

Shit. "He did," said Jack.

"Not exactly," said a voice from behind him. 

Daniel Jackson was still brown-haired and tall; just about everything else about him had changed. Where his hair had flopped over his forehead, it was now about a half an inch long; where he'd been pale from late nights researching Egyptian hieroglyphics, he was now bronzed, wrinkles etched in the skin around his eyes; and where he he'd been lanky and awkward, he was now lean and muscled, his biceps visible under a black BDU t-shirt.

"Jackson..." said Jack, realizing that his life had been too peaceful and quiet for the last four years, and now he was going to pay for it. "So, you're alive."

"Jack," said Jackson, nodding at the general as he crossed to the conference table. "Good to see you. You look... rested."

"Yeah, well--" Jack cut off as a big black guy followed Jackson in. The guy was big; not a lot taller than Jack, but a lot broader, and all of it muscle. He was dressed just like Jackson, in BDUs, but on his forehead was a weird ornament, like a gold stamp inside an ellipse. It almost looked like it grew there. There was nothing else on his head: his scalp was smooth as a piece of onyx.

"Sit down, Doctor Jackson, Tealk," said Hammond--at least it sounded like teal with a 'k' sound at the end. Jack suspected there would be apostrophes there. "I'm afraid I'll have to ask you to repeat your story for Colonel O'Neill."

"Colonel," said the black guy, as he sat down gingerly in the upholstered rolling chair. "This is a military rank, like General?" His voice was deep, his face impassive.

"Retired." Not that it would do any good: it hadn't so far. Just looking at Tealk gave Jack a sinking sensation; he _liked_ his life the way it was. Hockey practice on Tuesday and Thursday evenings, games on Saturdays; and in the springtime it was baseball. Simpsons marathons on the Comedy Channel and the weekly poker night with Kawalsky and the guys. He sighed. "Okay, I give. Jackson, how come you came back, who's your friend, and what's going on?"

Jackson smiled, but it wasn't the sweet grin he'd flashed at Jack and Ferretti as they'd left him on Abydos: this was weary and hard. "I came back to warn you; this is Tealk, who was the First Prime of Apophis; and what's going on is that Earth is under immediate threat of attack by a fleet of alien warships heading this way."

So much for that weekly poker night.

*

"So, let me get this straight," said Jack, over the beer he'd smuggled into the sparsely-furnished guest quarters on level 15. "You're a revolutionary now?"

After Abydos, and Jack's retirement, the Pentagon had decided to mothball the program, and most of General West's staff had been reassigned other places. The complex under NORAD, which Jack remembered as bustling with activity, now had only a skeleton caretaker staff while the memory of the Stargate was slowly buried under more immediate priorities in Washington. Hammond, Jack suspected, was given the command as a featherbed for his last few years of service--pity it had all gone south when the Stargate had activated suddenly around 2 AM last night, and spat out Jackson and his pal.

Jackson shrugged and turned his beer in his hands, which were nicked here and there with scars Jack didn't remember seeing four years ago. "Teal'c's the rebel, really--I'm more of a liaison, or maybe a cultural advisor." He took a sip of the beer--Jack had sprung for the good stuff, Fat Tire out of Boulder--and made a face. 

"Who do you liaise with?" If even half of what Jackson and Teal'c (he'd been right about the apostrophe) had said in that four-hour debriefing were true, Earth really was in trouble. But Jack was pretty sure that there was still a lot of intel he _wasn't_ getting, and he wanted to know why.

"Depends. Humans, mostly--most human populations on the gate network are enslaved, to a greater or lesser extent. They provide supplies and food for the Goa'uld and the Jaffa, and they worship the Goa'uld as gods. They're mostly at a pre-industrial level of technology; I still haven't figured out where the Goa'uld get the engineers and technicians they need to maintain and build their ships and weapons. We did hear rumors of some planets with advanced technology, but nobody knew their addresses."

"And the--goold--Goa'uld--they all do what Ra did, take over human bodies?" Ra had been spooky enough, all that age and malice in what was basically just a kid's body; Jack had a hard time imagining hundreds of them, all wearing heavy makeup and flashy golden robes and driving spaceships around the galaxy. "What do they--I mean, what are they otherwise? Without a human body?"

Jackson put his beer on the nightstand and bent over to untie his boots, hiding his face. "Like worms, about a foot long, but with barbs and fangs and tendrils. They enter through the mouth or the back of the neck, and wrap around your spinal cord. Once they've occupied a human body, the body is unnaturally strong and fast, and almost immortal, since they use the sarcophagus, like the one that revived me on Ra's ship."

Jack repressed a shudder; and _this_ was what had happened to that lively girl Jackson had married? No wonder he had gone after her. Shame he hadn't been able to rescue her. "Any way to get it out?"

"Not that I know of." Jackson didn't look up, although both boots were off, and his toes flexed against the thin industrial carpeting.

"Drink your beer," said Jack after a moment, and Jackson sat back up. "And then tell me whatever it is you're not telling me."

"There's a lot I'm not telling you, Jack. It's been four years, after all." The tone was mild, but Jackson's eyes flickered away for a moment. Jack just waited, taking another sip of his beer, and then another. The clock on the wall ticked away, Jack stayed slumped in his chair, and finally Jackson sighed. "I was the one who gave them Earth's coordinates. It wasn't--I was captured, trying to set up a meet with Heru'er's First Prime, and they interrogated me. Unfortunately, one of Heru'er's lieutenants is a Goa'uld smarter than the rest, and instead of torturing me, they drugged me. I'd have told them my social security number and my high school locker combination if they asked."

"And Heru'er is...?" Jack wasn't about to bitch someone out for anything they said in an interrogation room. He'd been on both sides of that door: he knew how it worked.

The label on Jackson's beer peeled away in a neat strip under his restless fingers. "One of the System Lords, and a long-time rival of Apophis. The prospect of an industrialized planet full of potential hosts, and that no other Goa'uld had discovered, was too much for him to resist."

"And Teal'c thinks we can help his people? While we're being attacked by this guy?" The anger in Teal'c's eyes was enough to convince Jack the man was for real; but Jack had spent too many years not trusting anyone's agenda, and he wasn't about to start now. "What's he get out of it?"

Jackson's eyes went hooded, the blue darkening. "He's a good friend, and he can help. Nobody knows more about fighting the Goa'uld than Teal'c." Jack had watched the two of them during the briefing--the quick glances, the body language of men who'd spent every waking hour in each other's company, moving, planning. Fighting. 

Jack _really_ wanted to know the story of the last four years--well, three, he guessed, the three years after Sha're was taken. He also doubted he was going to get it without a lot of time, patience, and alcohol; and they were seriously short of the first two. He did know that Jackson had more blood on his hands than he did when Jack last saw him. It made him both easier for Jack to understand, and more unfamiliar at the same time.

"So how much time do we have?"

Jackson shrugged. "Months, if we're lucky. Maybe a year, if we're really lucky."

The last swallow of beer in Jack's bottle was warm and bitter. "Fuck. You know, I was done, Jackson. You are screwing with my peaceful retirement."

Jackson's smile was humorless but friendly. "Call me Daniel."

*

"So... not human, huh?" Jack stared. Sure _looked_ human enough, except for the tattoo.

Teal'c just looked at him; his face might as well be concrete. After a pause that was almost long enough to be insulting, he nodded. Once. Very shallowly.

"What makes you different?" Jack smiled blandly. Ordinarily Jack wouldn't spend the time on an arrogant bastard, but (a) he was gonna have to work with the guy; and (b) he wanted to know how Daniel, of all people, could put up with this. Even four years couldn't have knocked away Jackson's resistance to the military mindset.

The corners of Teal'c's broad mouth turned down briefly. "Jaffa were genetically engineered by the Goa'uld to carry immature symbiotes. They give us strength and long life, far greater than that of any human."

"Long life, huh?" Jack tucked away "carry immature symbiotes"--he was pretty sure he didn't want to know about that. "How old are you?" Teal'c looked about thirty, maybe.

"The calendar year of my home planet is approximately twenty percent longer than that of Earth. I was born sixty-eight years ago on Chulak."

"Woah."

*

"They don't believe you, Doctor Jackson." Hammond's voice was firm but sympathetic.

"They think I'm lying?" Daniel looked affronted.

Jack shook his head. "Some of them, maybe. But most of them probably don't _want_ to believe it."

"Colonel O'Neill is right. We've given them a lot of information, and no time to process it. If I hadn't met you and Teal'c myself, seen your evidence..."

"But--" sputtered Daniel. Jack was reassured to see some of the self-involved academic he remembered. "Don't they understand the risks?"

"They don't think the possibility you're right is worth the cost of preparing for attack," Jack said bluntly. "Mobilization, political damage, public outrage or panic--they aren't going to take that on the word of one disgraced academic and an alien who doesn't look all that alien."

Daniel threw himself to his feet and went to the window overlooking the Stargate. He put his hands on the sill and leaned against it, his head down. "They haven't seen what I--what _we_ \--have seen. It's worth any price to protect Earth from that, no matter the risk. Even if there were only one chance in twenty that I was right, it would be worth it. God! How stupid are they!"

"They are politicians," stated Teal'c, with that impenetrable certainty that was beginning to grow on Jack. Not that he was about to admit it. "The perception of control is far more important to their position than the reality of danger."

"I'm afraid you're right about that," said Hammond.

There was a brief silence in the conference room, as Jack played with his pen and Daniel pouted against the windowsill. "So, Teal'c, what would you do?" asked Jack. "If we were on your home planet?"

Daniel snickered. 

"I would challenge them to battle to the death under the rite of joma secu. When I had succeeded in defeating them in individual combat, I would organize the defense of the planet." When Jack stared at him, Teal'c merely raised an eyebrow.

"I... see," said Hammond, clearly not seeing at all. "Well, I'm afraid that won't work here, but we do have some options."

"Sir?" The honorific still came easily to Jack; although he was technically retired, the more time he spent with Hammond, the more he felt like he'd re-upped without knowing it. Something about Hammond made Jack forget all the rocks-for-brains COs he'd had, and the bitter taste of knowing why West had sent _him_ , specifically, through the Stargate to Abydos.

"The daughter of an old friend is with NASA in Houston," said Hammond. "I'll give her a call, see what she can do with the readings they're taking on the ISS. Maybe we can get some advance notice."

Daniel sighed. "That's not much, General."

Hammond nodded. "That's not all we're going to do, Doctor Jackson."

*

"I'm sorry, General, I don't understand. What do you want me to do?" The woman's voice over the phone was--justifiably, Jack thought--baffled. Not every day does an old family friend ask you to misappropriate NASA property without explaining why.

"We need readings," said Hammond, but Daniel leaned forward and interrupted him.

"It's the Hourglass Nebula," he said into the speakerphone. "I figured out the address, it's the Hourglass Nebula. We need someone to be watching it. For, um," he looked at Jack beseechingly.

"Objects," announced Jack. "Outer-space objects from the Hourglass Nebula."

There was a long silence. "Objects from the Hourglass Nebula."

"That's right, Sam," said Hammond. 

"Why?" The woman's voice was blunt. 

"I'm afraid we can't tell you that."

There was another long pause: Jack could almost hear her skepticism over the silent line. "Well, can you at least tell me who I'm talking to, sir? Besides you?"

Hammond lifted his eyebrows at Jack, who shrugged. He didn't see any problems. "I'm Colonel Jack O'Neill, and this is Doctor Jackson."

"Daniel," amended Daniel, helpfully. "Nice to meet you, ah--"

"Captain Samantha Carter. And, well." She hesitated. "You guys wouldn't happen to be in a bunker underneath NORAD, would you?"

What?

"Because I recognize your name, Doctor Jackson. And yours, Colonel. I spent two years on... your project, before they shut the program down."

Daniel was gaping; Hammond looked astonished, but then began to smile proudly. "That's a remarkable coincidence, Sam."

"Not really, sir. If I couldn't go to space one way, I'd go another. Now, can you tell me again what you're looking for?"

*

The next weeks blurred like the view through the dirty windows of a speeding Greyhound; it was only images, later. The feel of the dry air on his face and the dust in his nose when they stepped through the gate on Abydos; and then the dank must of the next planet, where Daniel waved his hands urgently and Teal'c loomed at some dark-skinned guys in robes. The look on Kawalsky's face the first time Jack showed him what the new zats could do. The way the light on Jack's answering machine blinked and blinked, messages from angry parents and unhappy hockey players piling up. The baffled voice of Hammond's contact, some computer jockey named Carter, trying to decipher Daniel's piss-poor astronomy over an encrypted telecon.

They did what they could, with their limited resources--ten men and women Jack trusted, eighteen more Hammond brought in, a few of Jackson's contacts. Two hard-eyed warriors from offworld--Jack would have called them mercs, himself, and never put his back to them. Hammond did what he could within his small budget, and Jack maxed out his credit cards and took a HELOC on the cabin (for what little it was worth) to rent a warehouse in southern Denver for the gear they were aquiring.

"Can we get into Area 51?" Daniel was asking Hammond, as Jack came in through the door, . "There's got to be something there--"

"We've got other problems," said Jack. "Charlie, check the back exit. I think we have a spook." Kawalsky nodded and headed for the rear, one hand on the weapon in his pocket.

"Spook?" Daniel looked baffled.

Jack jerked his head towards the street. "We're under surveillance. I can't tell for sure, but I think it's Company."

The lines on Hammond's avuncular face deepened. "I suppose it was only a matter of time, given the money we've been spending. You can't hide the power activating the gate uses, or the staff going in and out of the Mountain."

"So..." said Daniel, frowning. "What do we do?"

Jack looked to Hammond. "We can leave him be, wait and see what he does, where he goes." 

But that wasn't what Jack wanted to do, and Hammond knew it. And maybe Hammond himself had some of the same kind of experience Jack had, experience that didn't show up on the public version of his service record. Because Hammond considered for a moment, and then shook his head. "I don't think we have that kind of time, Colonel. Bring him in."

Okay, so it wasn't quite as easy as all that, but nearly. Twenty minutes later there was a pissed-off middle-aged guy with _four_ concealed weapons and an FBI ID strapped to a chair in the shipping office of the warehouse. When Jack pulled the blindfold and duct tape away, he was unsurprised that their prisoner said nothing, at first, just glared at them all in sequence.

Hammond stayed behind the chair and out of sight, at Jack's insistence. But Jack, Kawalsky, and Daniel were all surveyed and noted for later "processing", the way the guy's eyes narrowed.

"So," said Jack after a few moments, and pulling over a chair, swung it around so he could face the prisoner over the back. He kept his hands empty: Kawalsky was the muscle, here. "Gonna tell us why you were watching us, Mr. _Miller_?" Miller? As if.

"Why should I? You're not stupid, Colonel." Pretty arrogant for a captive, but then the Company didn't hire its people for their modesty. "Or you, Doctor Jackson. You know why I'm here."

"Ah..." Daniel hesitated. "Actually, I don't. I know what _we're_ doing here, but I don't see why anyone in the government would want to spy on us. We're trying to save lives."

Three years out there in the galaxy, and sometimes Daniel's idealism could still surprise Jack. "They don't think we're trying to save lives, Daniel. They think we're starting a rebellion." Jack smiled when the prisoner's eyes shifted slightly to the right. "Yeah, that's what I thought. Got me why someone with the chance to travel the goddamn galaxy would want to mess with the US military, though. But then I never understood the policy guys, anyway. Eggheads, living in little boxes in the Pentagon."

"Nice try, Colonel. But did you really think anyone was going to believe you? All you had for proof was a disgraced academic declared dead three years ago, and an alien you wouldn't let anyone examine." The sneer appeared to be permanent; Jack restrained the urge to slap it off Miller's face.

"Good thing, too," said Kawalsky with a glower. "You'da dissected Teal'c as soon as look at him, and if we've got any chance to save the world, it's because of him. You'll be thanking us we didn't let you bastards touch him."

Sneaking Teal'c and his guys off-post had been a bitch and a half, but it had to be done once Hammond had realized quite how interested -- Jack's eyes sharpened. "You're not Company. You're NID."

Miller smirked. "You're smarter than you look, O'Neill."

"And what's that mean?" asked Daniel, shoving his hands deeper into the pockets of his oversized barn jacket. Jack's jacket, actually--it was easier to just lend Daniel clothes than try to find time to take him shopping. 

"NID are the spooks even the spooks don't talk about," said Jack. "Not so much into wetwork, but they do love their shiny toys. They'd love to get their hands on one of these," he added, waggling the zat in his hand.

"Toys," replied Daniel thoughtfully, frowning. "Like the stuff they have at Area 51?"

Behind Miller, Hammond pulled his cell-phone out of his pocket, opened it, and turned away. Jack watched as Hammond's shoulder's stiffened beneath his windbreaker. He spoke quietly into the phone for another minute or so, then shut it with careful motions and placed it in the center of the workbench.

"Well." His voice was solemn.

Jack had a fierce and terrible longing for a cigarette. "Sir?" 

"That was our friend in Houston." Hammond stood as straight as if he were on the parade ground. "The sensors on the International Space Station have identified something approaching Earth, out near the orbit of Jupiter."

"And?" Daniel's voice was strangled.

"Whatever it is, there are four of them, and at their current speed they'll reach Earth in less than thirty-six hours." 

Thirty-six hours. 

"Jackson, you said _months!_ " squawked Kawalsky.

"If we were lucky," corrected Jack, the blood rushing cold through his veins. "Not his fault."

It was clear from the anguished expression on Daniel's face that Daniel, at least, did not agree.

"Oh, right," said Miller peevishly, twisting at his bonds. "You don't expect me to believe this second-grade play-acting, do you?"

*

"They will enslave your people and steal your technology."

Jack looked up from the table where he was reassembling his P-90 for the second time. Teal'c and Carter were hunched over her laptop: from this angle, he could see an aerial shot of North America at night, all sparkling coastlines and darkened interior.

"I got that," said Captain Carter again, her voice patient. Jack wasn't sure what he'd expected, but this aggressive blonde, with an edge in her voice and hair pinned carefully up wasn't it. She'd pulled into the lot next to the warehouse six hours ago in a vintage Volvo, and piled out carrying a laptop case and a small backpack. They hadn't asked her to come: she'd just shown up, and what was Jack going to do? If anything survived this, it would be because she gave them the warning. 

"What I mean is, how will they enslave us? What will they do?"

Teal'c frowned. "They will bombard your cities from orbit, then use Death Gliders and ground troops to pacify the populace."

Jack slapped the clip back into place and got up, cracking his neck with a groan. "Bombard with what, Teal'c? Nukes? Rocks?"

"No. The Goa'uld do not use nuclear weapons; they contaminate the planet and degrade the genetic pool too much."

Daniel and Kawalsky looked up from the corner where they were eating. Kawalsky had a smear of pizza sauce on his face. "Also," said Daniel, wiping his hands on a napkin, "they don't really have the technical skill to handle them. I don't know; maybe plutonium and uranium are as common as naquadah out there." He waved a hand vaguely upwards, their standard gesture for the rest of the galaxy.

_The rest of the galaxy._ How had it happened, that Jack needed a gesture for this?

Teal'c shifted uncomfortably, but didn't contradict Daniel. 

[And that's where it ends.]

**Author's Note:**

> Honest to god, I found this on my hard drive and I have NO MEMORY of writing it.


End file.
